Abstract
Ozonated water is being introduced as an alternative phytosanitary treatment to control grapevine diseases in a context in which the reduction of chemical pesticides has become an urgent necessity. In this study, we evaluated the effect of spraying grapevines with ozonated water on the enological, phenolic, and aromatic qualities of Bobal wines during two consecutive growing seasons. In the first season, ozonated water was applied once during the ripening period on grapevines trained on the traditional gobelet system (S1). In the second season, three applications were performed between fruit set and harvest on grapevines grown on a vertical trellis system (S2). The S1 treatment led to a wine with an increased alcoholic degree and a remarkably higher phenolic content, which resulted in preferable chromatic characteristics. The S2 treatment maintained the total phenolic content but significantly enhanced stilbenes and flavanols and also reduced anthocyanins, which negatively affected the wine colour. Regarding aroma, both treatments reduced the content of glycosylated precursors and had different effects on free volatiles, both varietal and fermentative. Thus, the metabolic response of grapevines to the ozonated water stress, and therefore the quality of wines, depended on the ozone dose received by the plants.
Highlights
Grapevines are among the most important crops worldwide, covering a surface area of 7.4 million hectares [1]
No significant differences were found between the wines from the control and treated grapevines in terms of the classical parameters such as pH, TA or VA; the Spraying 1 (S1) wine showed an increased ◦A value compared to the respective control, which is consistent with the increased sugar content observed in the grapes from which this wine was produced [3]
The susceptibility of the plants was higher in consecutive years with similar ozone doses [39]. This was not observed in the S1 grapes under the assayed conditions, probably because the ozone dose was insufficient, but could be the explanation for the reduction in the sugar content found in the Spraying 2 (S2) grapes [3], the resulting wine reached an ◦A value similar to the wine produced with untreated grapes (Table 1)
Summary
Grapevines are among the most important crops worldwide, covering a surface area of 7.4 million hectares [1]. Environmental and health risks associated with chemical pesticides have encouraged the need to ensure their reasonable use and the search for other approaches for sustainable pest management In this context, ozonated water is starting to be used as an alternative phytosanitary treatment in the vineyard [3], which has proven to reduce fungal and bacterial populations in grapevines [4,5]. Given its low persistence and spontaneous decomposition to a nontoxic product, ozone is considered environmentally friendly This gas is partially soluble in water, and its stability in aqueous phase depends on many factors such as the partial pressure of the gas, the temperature, the purity and pH of the water, and the fluid-dynamic conditions [7]. The half-life of gaseous ozone at 20 ◦C is considered to be 3 days, while in distilled water at the same temperature, it decomposes by 50% within 20 min [8]
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